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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowns faintly at the commotion, tilting his head, trying to see.

“…What’s going on? What happened?”

[conning]

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” He tugs the end of his pant leg up and rolls his sock down, wincing as the dampened cloth peels away from skin. The bleed underneath is dark, fast, but small, he thinks. He can’t tell where it’s coming from. His whole ankle is chafed through to the dermis, all of it bloody, but there’s too much blood for it to just be from that.

“What the fuck,” Neal whispers, horrified. “That wasn’t there this morning.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm peels himself off the floor, moving into the kitchen to grab what is doubtless and expensive linen tea towel with no regard for it, lurching around the island to tie it tightly around the whole ankle to stem the blood, but he can see it’s already soaking fast.

“Infirmary. Now,” he orders, already preparing to take most of Neal’s weight as he turns him towards the door with more firm sternness than Neal’s ever heard from him.

[conning]

With that kind of tone, Neal doesn’t debate him. He half-hops, half-walks toward the door, putting as little weight on his affected leg as possible, acutely conscious of the pain and the increasing weight of blood seeping into the towel.

“If I die,” he says, and falters at the words. “If I die, maybe don’t bring me back until this is over.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looks up at him in confusion and alarm.

“What? What are you talking about?”

[conning]

“I guess wardens come back automatically, but inmate revivals have to be requested by a warden.” He leans against the wall as they make it to the hallway, shuffling along with its support, trying not to think about the fact that there’s blood in his shoe and that he’s leaving streaks on the floor. Is the lightheadedness physical or mental? He’s not sure.

“If… if I’m just going to keep bleeding out, or something, If I’m going to just keep getting injuries…” He lets the thought hang.

[abrightboy]

“You’re not going to; we’re going to figure this out. Who have you been talking to?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"Maggie was the one who brought it up," he says, not registering what the issue might be. He's breathing heavier even by the time they get to the stairs. Neal gives them a despairing look.

[abrightboy]

"Brought up what? Dealing with hard things by being dead?"

He shifts and puts Neal over his shoulder in a fireman carry, grunting only faintly as he starts up the stairs.

[conning]

Neal makes a slight noise of surprise and protest as Malcolm lifts him, more protest at the indignity than the necessity. His ears are ringing again.

"You're really strong," he says, still surprised. "She didn't mean it like that, just that... This flood is... taking away people's option to choose what they want to share. If they want to share. That it could be easier for people to wait it out instead of having to choose between stacking deaths up or baring their souls."

He has to enunciate carefully. His dizziness is building into a kind of fatigued nausea, the which isn't helped by Malcolm's rhythm on the stairs. "You're really strong."

[abrightboy]

"I do a lot of push-ups. Please explain how what you said is different from what I said, substantially," Malcolm responds a little breathlessly.

[conning]

Neal closes his eyes, hoping to stem the nausea a little with darkness, but his head is starting to pound with every step they take.

"Motivation," he mumbles.

[abrightboy]

"The motivation is avoiding the effects of the flood. Same motivation," Malcolm argues. "Same motivation as when you got here and suggested that maybe not dying was the wrong choice."

[conning]

"No," he says, a little irritated. "Different emotional motivation."

Which implies there was a distinct emotional motivation behind the whole dying thing but he's going to ignore that.

[abrightboy]

"Is there? I don't see it. You'll have to explain."

And if that also keeps him talking, it's a total coincidence.

[conning]

"Not tapping out permanently," he says, trying to find a more eloquent way of putting it and failing. He's tired. His head hurts. His eyes ache, weirdly, and his fingertips are tingling a little. "Not going out with the intent to stay gone."

[abrightboy]

"And if it works for this? How many times will you pull that tool out of the toolbox? What's the difficulty threshold for offing yourself to get out of it?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

He hadn't thought of it like that. He doesn't have an answer for the question, and he's starting to drift too much to think of a deflection.

"Anklet," he murmurs instead. "It's where the anklet was. I don't know the anatomy. I do. But. Visual anatomy, not actual anatomy."

[abrightboy]

"Okay, why did you have a tracking anklet? They thought you were a flight risk?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

"I was," he murmurs. "Got around it more than once. Cut it before."

A faint wisp of amusement colors his tone. "Drove them crazy when I was undercover and got to take it off."

[abrightboy]

"If you came back after that... why didn't they trust you?" Malcolm asks.

[conning]

Neal stays quiet. He doesn't know how to answer, because he's asked himself that question endlessly. Endlessly. Until it made him want to claw the thoughts out of his head through his own ears.

"I'm a criminal," he finally says, closing his eyes and letting them stay closed. The lids are annoyingly heavy.

[abrightboy]

“Wasn’t the point of working with them redemption?” Malcolm asks.

[conning]

“It was to get out,” he says, tired beyond words. It’s scaring him, the way he feels loose and limp across Malcolm’s shoulders. The way the spots where Malcolm’s angles dug into him feel more tingly now than painful, like his whole body is falling asleep. This is the way it felt on the floor of Rebecca’s apartment, with Peter desperately ordering him to hold on.

“Sorry,” he says, the word slurred.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm bursts out of the stairwell with him.

“Bullshit,” he says plainly.